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\ 



THE 



HISTORY OF BEASTED, 



ITS MAiJOE, PAEISH, AND CHUEOH. 



BY 

J. CAVE-BEOWNE, M.A., 

CUBATE-IK-CHABGS. 



ILLUSTRATED BY A PHOTOGBAFH OF THE TOWBR. 



All proceeds arifiing from the sale will be f^yea to the '' Church Tower 

Reetoration Fund" 



J. H. JEWELL, WESTERHAM, 

1874. 



% 



A 5 I b^.ix:i> 



HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY 

NOV It 1916 

SUBSCRIPTION OF 1916 



'Watflon and Huell, Pzinten^ London and AyleibTiry, 



TO THE VENERABLE 

BENJAMIN HAERISON, M.A., 

ABOHDEAOON OF MAIDSTONE. 

My deab Abchdeacon, 

As it was yonr kindlj mention of my name which led 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, after my return from India, 
to place me in temporary charge of Brasted, I feel there is no 
one to whom I can so fitly inscribe this attempt to trace out 
the history of the Parish as to yourself ; especially as the 
work owes its origin to your urgent recommendation to our 
excellent Churchwardens^ at your Visitation of the parish 
last autumn, that '^ considering the renerable and interesting 
character of the ancient and massive tower,'' they should 
make a yigorous effort to remove the present painful contrast 
which its dilapidated appearance presents to the New Church 
adjoining. 

I am the more desirous to connect yonr name with this 
little work, as it gives me the opportuniiy of testifying my 
grateftd appreciation of a friendship, marked by imnumbered 
acts of kindness, extending over more than thirty years. 

• Believe me to be. 

My dear Archdeacon, 

Yours most sincerely, 

J. Cavb-Bbownb. 

Brasted Rbotort, Curate-in-Charge» 

March, 1874. 





CONTENTS. 




PAQB. 


PAGE. 


Tntroduction. 


V 


Country Seats . . 20, 21 


The Name 


1 


Rectory .... 22 


Its Meaning . 


. 3 


Rectors . . . 23—29 


Form of the Parish , 


4 


Church . . . 30-32 


History of the Manor . 


. 5 


Coats of Arms . . 33, 34 


Ancient Tenure of the Manor 8 


Monuments . . 35—46 


Manorial terjiis . . 


. 9 


Tower .... 46—49 


Hog-driver 


9 


Registers . . • . 50 


Head-silver . 


. 10 


Briefs ...«,. 51 


The^ViUe" . s. 


11 


Parish Charities . « 52 


'^Bloodins" 


. 12 


Tradesman's Token . . 53 


Pilgrims' Koad 


13 


Register entries of Crow, 


Hog-trough Hill . 


. 14 


Heath, and Seyliard fami- 


Ch^, Weald, eta . 


15 


lies. . . . . 54, 55 


Brasted Park 


15—18 


Genealogical Table . . 56 


Prinoe Napoleon 


19 






INTEODUCTION. 



Every parish has its history, written in the walls and windows 
of its Parish Church, in its Church Registers, and its Parish 
records, and in its local traditions and customs ; a history 
which can hardly fail to have an interest for succeeding 
generations of parishioners ; and it may prove of some value, 
too, so far as it forms an integral part, however small, of the 
sum total of the nation's history. 

In a parish, with its landmarks of social change, its im- 
prints of the advancement of art, and its memorials of departed 
piety, all connecting the living reverently and lovingly with 
the dead^a Clergyman maybe forgiven if in his ministrations 
amongst the men and women and children of to-day he per- 
mits himself to be sometimes drawn back in thought and in 
research among those of the past, and finds pleasure in ever 
and anon dweUing upon the great and good and lovely that 
are gone, in the midst of these records of their deeds and 
their virtues. His ministerial efforts need not suffer by the 
distraction ; they will rather be stimulated by the associations ; 
the surroundings of the place and the people will draw him 
the more closely to them in personal as well as pastoral sym- 
pathy and interest* 



vi INTRODUCTION. 

To such an influence the writer must plead guilty of having 
yielded. 

When, in the strong conviction that, especially among the 
working classes, industry and sobriety, and consequently 
domestic happiness, have a wonderfully close connection, he 
proposed last Autumn that an attempt should be made to 
get up a Parochial " Industrial Exhibition," and was met 
on every side with ready promises of co-operation, though 
occasionally accompanied by a good-natured smile of doubt as 
to success, he eventually found himself in this difficulty, that 
while all, old and young, men and wcoien, boys and girls, 
seemed bent on doing something y he himself was likely to be 
left standing out as the only noinAndustrwus member of the 
community. He was not clever enough to carve, or model, 
or paint, or even knit or sew, so he bethought himself he 
would try if he could write something that would be worth 
exhibiting. Probably (he thought) nothing would be more 
acceptable generaQy, than a short history of the parish iteelf. 
So he set himself to gather from every possible source such 
local knowledge as was available, and this little volume is 
the result. In offering it to his parishioners he feels sure of 
their indulgent reception of it. Should it fall into the hands 
of more severe judges, he hopes he may plead for mercy as 
being a mere tyra^ as imfortunately the work itself will show, 
in Architecture and Archaeology. He can only say he has 
tried to do his best. 

In writing it he has set before himself two ends, and ear- 
nestly hopes he has not wholly failed of either, — ^to help, by 
any profits arising from the sale of the book to form the 
nucleus of a Fund for the Restoration of the Church Tower, 



■«Tl 



INTRODUCTION, vii 

and also to leave behind some memento — though he would 
fain hope this will not be the only, or the most lasting one — of 
his temporary connection with the parish as its Curate. 



Where every application for information or help has been 
so readily responded to, it may seem invidious to select only 
some for thanks ; to name all will be impossible. Yet he 
feels that, while now thanking all most sincerely, there are 
three to whom his acknowledgments are specially due ; to Mrs. 
Streatfield, of Charts Edge, for free access to her noble library, 
a treasure-house of local archaeological wealth ; to the Vener- 
able Archdeacon Harrison, for having been allowed to draw so 
largely upon his fund of local ecclesiastical knowledge, and 
his ready research ; and above all, to Mr. John Murray, pf 
Albemarle Street, to whose liberality and local interest he 
owes it that he is able to give the entire proceeds of the sale of 
this volume to the " Tower Restoration Fund." 



THE 



HISTOEY OF BEASTED 



npHE parish of Brasted lies in the rich valley of Holmes- 
-■- dale, almost on the western border-line of Kent, 
separated only from the adjacent couniy of Surrey by the 
parish of Westerham. This portion of the valley, from its 
fertility and picturesque beauty, is commonly known as 
" The Archbishop's Garden " — the three parishes of Brasted, 
Sundridge, and Chevening, which run along it, having been 
for many centuries connected with the See of Canterbury. 

In Domesday Book, (which bears date A.D. 1086,) the name 
Briestede occurs, as that of a manor in Kent 
held under the Archbishop of Canterbury,* and 
from the similarity of sound, especially when taking into 
account the broad Saxon pronunciation, this has been 
generally accepted as the original form of the name now 
modernised into Brasted. In support of this view, despite 
the scepticism of Philipott,t we find remarkable collateral 

* The entry in Domesday Book is as follows, tmder the heading 
"Terra militum ejus": " Haimo Vicec[ome8] tenet de Archiep[iscop]o 
Bribstede ;" and, after detailing its value, its arable land, woodland, 
pasturage, etc., etc., is added, "Hoc m[anerium] tenuit Alnod Abb[as] 
de Archiep[i8cop]o Cantuar[ensi]." — Chertth, p. vii. 

* Philipott (Yillare Cantianum, p. 68) gravely doubts the identity 
of the two names. He gives his reasons at some length ; but it is evi- 

B 



2 THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED. 

testimony in a work which may be called a " supplementary" 
Domesday Book, which must have been compiled about the 
same time as the " King's " Domesday Book ; but confines 
itself to a record of the Church lands as then held.* Here 
the name of the manor is given Bradstede,^ and the similarity 
in the details of the two entries leaves it beyond* question that 
they refer to the same place. In the next earliest record of 
manors and parishes, the " Textus Rofiensis/' % compiled A. d. 
1115, which contains, among other varied and quaint infor- 
mation, copies of charters, grants, etc^ connected with the 

dent that the entry in the Church D(Mnesday Book was unknown to 
him. Nor, indeed, does it seem to be known to Hasted or Harris. 

■* Where the original of thi» work now is, if it still exists, is un- 
known. A MS. copy of the portion referring to the manors of Christ 
Church Priory, Canterbury, ia preserved in a memorandum book of 
Prior Eastry's, of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum : but 
for that portion relating to the manors held under the Archbishop, we 
are indebted to Somners, who has rescued it from oblivion by printing 
it in extmso in his history : yet he does not mention where he saw 
the original. For valuable information regarding this work the 
writer is indebted to T. G. Godfrey Faussett, Esq., of Canterbury. 

t The entry stands thus : '^ De Bradstede. Bradstede tenuit Wlnod 
cild ab Archiep. T. E. ^, et nunc tenet illud Haimo ab isto Lanfranco 
Archiepisc. et tunc defendebat se, etc., etc. Istud manerium est in 
hundredo de Hostreham." (A copy of this interesting entry appears, 
inside the cover of one of the parish Kecord Books, apparently in 
the handwriting of Dr. M. Bull.) The similarity in the two entries is 
remarkable. Wlnod cUd means Wlnod the yownger or the chM; 
probably the word "Wlnod** (W being used as a vowel in Saxon) 
is identical with the word '^ Alnod '* in the King's Domesday Book ; 
and probably, too, both are Normanised forms of the Saxon name 
** jEgelnoth,'* or " -^thelnoth," who was the last but one of the 
Abbots (T. E. B.) in the time of King Edward the Confessor. 

J This reference is wrongly given by Hasted and HarriB. Through 
the kindness of the Dean of Rochester the writer has been 
able to examine very carefully the ** Textus Roffensis" in the 
original, (and also ** Registerium Roflfense" by J. Thorpe, which con- 
tains extensive extracts from the " Textus,'*) but without finding this 
allusion to BradesUde. 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 3 

Diocese of Rochester (which until quite recently included 
this part of Kent), the name is written Bradestede. The 
change from Bradestede and Bradstede to the present fonn, 
Brasted, appears to have crept in early in the sixteenth cen- 
tury. In the Archiepiscopal Registers in Lambeth Palace 
Library, it first occurs as Brasted in Archbishop Cranmer's 
Register, in the year 1537. 

A diflSculty presents itself at the outset as to the meaning of 
the name : for Briestede no derivation has been ,, 

Its meaning. 

proposed ; while for Bradestede different ones have 
been given. Hasted* assumes that the Saxon word brcuie 
means long : and such a derivation undoubtedly describes the 
form of the parish very correctly, for it is the longest parish in 
the county, being above eight miles from end to end, alid in 
no part more than one mile in width. Harris,f on the other 
hand, gives " broad " as the more exact meaning of hradey but 
does not attempt to explain how it apphes to this parish. It is 
clear that the term "broad" cannot in its primary sense 
represent the form of a parish which has the marked pecu- 
liarity of being very narrow in proportion to its length. 
But the Saxon word hrade was sometimes used in a secondary 
and wider sense of " large," " extensive ; " of this use we 
stiU retain some instances in common parlance, when we 
speak of " broad lands," " broad acres," " the broad ocean," 
etc.; and in this sense it might perhaps not improperly 
represent a parish considerably larger in area than many of 
its neighbours. Another solution also suggests itself, though 
it may be feared this one will hardly receive favour with 
rigid eiymological critics. The only road which in Saxon 
days would have crossed this parish would have been one 

* Hist, of Kent (12 vol. octavo ed.), vol. iii., p. 146. 
t Hist, of Kent (foUo)^ vol. L, p. 53. 



4 THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED, 

running east and west, serving as a highroad between 
Winchester, the capital of the West Saxons, and Canter- 
bury,, the capital of the old kingdom of Kent ; and the 
traveller, as he journeyed along this road, would have 
Brasted stretching in all its breadth right and left of him. 

Yet another explanation of the name has been offered, and 
certainly carries some weight with it, which is that the epi- 
thet broad originally referred, not to the shape of the manor 
or parish, but to that of the stedcy the settlement, or village. 
This, however, can only be a matter of conjecture ; for there 
remain no ruins in any part of the village, nor is there any 
local tradition, to point to some grand old manor house or 
extensive range of buildings forming the original settlement, 
which would entitle it to such a distinction. 

Whatever the real meaning of the name, the formation of 
The form of ^^® parish is remarkable. It is a narrow strip 
the parish- stretching from the range of Kentish chalk hills, 
on which Knockholt, with its well-known clump of beeches, is 
so conspicuous a landmark, in almost parallel lines between 
Sundridge and Westerham, till it terminates abruptly, about 
a mile and a half below Toy's Hill, at Piggott's Wood ; and, 
with a detached portion of Hever intervening, reappears 
about a mile further south, just beyond the " Four Elms " 
hamlet, and then runs in a very irregular form, impinging 
right and left upon Edenbridge and Chiddingstone, nearly 
touching the town of Edenbridge on the one side, and the 
walls of Hever Castle on the other ; and including at its 
northern angle the ancient estate of the now extinct Seyliards, 
and in its southern range that of the once important old 
family of the De la Wares, with which they became blended. 

Inconvenient and without object as this extreme length of 
the parish may now seem, it is not difficult to discover the 



THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED, . 5 

original design of such an arrangement ; which doubtless 
was that the manor, which is conterminous with the parish, 
should embrace every variety of soil, hill and valley, arable 
and pasture, and woodland. There, too, was the- chalk for 
lime-burning and manure ; the flint on the hillside for road- 
making and repair ; the high forest ground, still known as the 
" Chart," for timber, with its soils of peat on the one side 
and gravel on the other ; and, below that, the vast expanse of 
smaller timber growth of the " Weald," out of which have 
been cleared the richer pasture-land enclosures which con- 
stitute the farms to the south. This very remarkable varieiy 
of soil, within comparatively so small a space, must have 
proved of incalculable value so long as " Common rights " 
existed to the parish at large, and to individual free- 
holders. 

Exactly 1100 years ago — ^that is, in the year 773* — Offa, the 
King of Mercia, defeated Aldric,t the King of The history of 
Kent, at Otford, and, being a zealous supporter *^® manor. 
of reUgion and Uberal benefactor of monasteries and churches, 
gave the manor which had been the scene of his victory, and 
several adjacent manors, or parishes, to the Priory of 
Christ Church, Canterbury, under whom they remained 
until the time of the Conquest. The then Archbishop, 
Stigand, being a Saxon, and having been a personal friend 
of the conquered Harold, and some doubts moreover being 
thrown on the validity of his consecration, William soon 
deposed him, and appointed Lanfranc, a Norman, to the 
Archbishopric. Lanfranc, having been Abbot of Caen, at 
once set himself to remodel the Priory after the foreign 

♦ Camden's "Britannia," p. 193 ; Hasted's "Kent," vol. iii., p. 147- 
t Camden says " Ealhmund," p. 313. 



6 THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED. 

pattern. Among other changes, he caused a division of the 
revenues, which had hitherto been held conjointly by the 
Archbishop and the Priory, taking one half to himself and 
his successors, and assigning the other half for the mainte- 
nance of the Prior and Convent, However, it would seem 
that he soon felt the inconvenience arising from a too power- 
ful patron ; for, as Domesday Book shows, he must have 
been at a very early date relieved of some of the temporal- 
ities of his See, several of the richest manors being dis- 
tributed among the Conqueror's Norman followers, and 
among others that of Brasted. This appears to have been 
given to Haimo de CvevequeTj the most powerful and influen- 
tial of his Norman nobles in this county ; from whom it 
must have soon passed into the hands of another Norman 
favourite named De Clare, who received other large grants in 
the neighbourhood of Tunbridge ; though when, and under 
what circumstances the transfer was made, there appears to be 
no record. He was soon after made Earl of Glo'ster and Hert- 
ford; and in this family the manor remained for above 400 
years. On the death of Gilbert de Clare at Bannockbum, 
without a aon, it passed through his daughter Margaret to her 
husband, Hugh de Audley, who was created Earl of Glo'ster 
by Edward III. He also leaving an only daughter, Margaret, 
it passed to her husband, Ralph Stafford, who was so high in 
favour with Edward III., that on the institution of the Order 
of the Garter, a.d. 1349, he was made one of the original 
knights, and was afterwards created Earl of StaflTord. His 
great-grandson, Humphrey Stafford, was created Duke of 
Buckingham by Henry VI., and fell fighting for the king in 
the battle of Northampton. Three generations more it 
remained in the Stafford family, when Edward, the fourth 
duke, was charged under Henry VIII. with high treason, and 



THE HISTORY OF BR AST ED, 7 

beheaded, and the manor of Brasted became forfeited to the 
Crown. 

From the reign of Henry VIII. the manor has known 
frequent changes. That king bestowed it upon one of his 
courtiers, Sir Henry Isley;* who being concerned in the 
rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt, in the first year of Queen 
Mary's reign, was attainted and executed at Sevenoaks, and 
the manor again confiscated. A few years after, however, 
it was restored to his son — a Sir Henry also — on condition 
of a yearly payment to the Crown. But in the twenty- 
second year of Elizabeth's reign (A.d. 1580), this payment 
having fallen heavily into arrears, the manor was again seized 
by the Crown, and sold. It then passed by purchase into the 
hands of Samuel Lennard,t whose family had for years owned 
the neighbouring estate of Chevening. His son, Sampson 
Lennard, married Margaret, si^r of Lord Dacre. This 
Lord Dacre dying without issue, the Barony of Dacre was 
conferred on Sampson Lennard. His great-grandson, Thomas 
Lennard, Lord Dacre, enjoyed the doubtful, and in his case 
fatal, honour of being in favour with Charles II., who created 
him Earl of Sussex. But at the profligate Court of the 
"Merry Monarch" he dissipated all his property, and 
returned to Chevening with broken health and ruined 
fortune, to linger out a few years in retirement. 

On his death, in 1715, Chevening estate and Brasted 
manor were sold ; and were purchased by Major-General 
James Stanhope, { who, having distinguished himself in the 
memorable capture of Port Mohun§ in Minorca, and the 

* The Isley family had long lived in the adjacent parish of Sun- 
dridge. 

t So Hasted spells it ; but Barke gives the name Leonard, 

X Grandson of Philip, first Earl of Chesterfield. 

§ Hence the second title of this branch of the family. 



•^m-mmmm^T'-mm 



8 THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 

victory of Almenaca in Spain, had been made one of the prin- 
cipal Secretaries of State on the accession of George I. in 
1714, and three years after was created Viscount, and in the 
following year Earl, Stanhope ; in whose family the estate 
of Chevening and the manor of Brasted still remain. 

When the manor was taken from the Archbishops by the 
Ancient ten- Conqueror, and conferred on his Norman knight, 
manor. De Clare, the See of Canterbury still retained a 

seignoralty or right paramount ; and this complicated tenure 
was productive of many disputes between the successive 
Archbishops and Earls of Glo'ster ; until, 200 years after, 
(a.d. 1264,) an amicable arrangement, (but one that will call 
up a smile in this nineteenth century,) was entered into 
between that fierce soldier prelate, Boniface, and Richard de 
Clare, then Earl of Glo'ster : to the effect that the Earls were 
to hold the manor under the Archbishops, on condition of 
doing service as SeneschalU* on the occasion of the " great 
feast of enthronization " of an Archbishop, and on doing suit 
for it at his Court at Otford. That feudal tenure has been long 
obsolete, passing away as entirely as the once lordly palace of 
Otford, of which scarce a vestige remains to mark its site. 

This original connectioa with Canterbury accounts for 
Brasted, and the neighbouring livings of Sundridge and 
Chevening, remaining Peculiars of that See, even though up 
to 1846 they were within the diocese of Bochester. The 
patronage of them, as well as the jurisdiction, has remained 
with the Archbishops for eleven hundred years. 



* Hasted (vol. iii., p. 148) calls them " Chief Butlers ;" Hams, 

*'High Stewards." To use legal phraseology, it was held of the 

Archbishops before the Conquest in fromk almoign; i^Wjsequently by 

tenure of Grand Sergeantry ; and of the Crown by Knight's service, or 

its equivalent. 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTED, 9 

In the manorial jurisdiction of Brasted are many traces of 
the rural life men led along this valley in by- Manorial 
gone days, — ^a fair type, too, of that which pre- *®"^- 
vailed through the length and breadth of Old England in the 
Middle Ages. Here the Lord of the Manor still holds his 
Court Leet, as well as his Court Baron, and here we find 
officers year by year appointed, such as a borsholder or hor- 
TougK a-^ldevy head man of a tything, and an ale-Conner^ whose 
office it was to taste the ale, and to examine the weights and 
measures ; though their functions have long since passed into 
the hands of men known under the less romantic name of 
Excise officers and County Police. Here is the street-driver ^ 
or hog-driver or hayward (corruption of hog- , 

warden) I and the duty of seeing that all the hogs 
were duly provided with nose-rings, and of keeping the en- 
closed lands and all the roads clear of straggling swine, was 
hardly a sinecure when these formed the staple ot a, franklin^ s 
(freeholder's) wealth, and every manor had, as recorded in 
Domesday Book, its amount of woodland representing its capa- 
bilities of pannagiuniy or feeding ground for swine, as well as 
of herbagium, or pasturage for cattle. This name of Jiog-driver 
occurring every year in the Court Leet records, reminds us 
that time was when this rich vale of Holmesdale, where 
now only here and there an isolated clump stands conspicu- 
ous in the landscape, was, as its very name indicates,* a 
woodland range of beech and oak,t beneath the shades of 

* Camden's Brit. p. 154. Lambarde's Perambulation, etc., p. 519. 

t So comparatively rare must elm-trees have been in this part, that 
the clustering of four together has given the name of '* Four Elms'' to 
an outlying hamlet ; and Dr. Michael Bull, the then rector, thinks it 
necessary to record in the Parish Register Book that '* Twenty-six elms 
were planted in the lower part of Bentfileld, next to the Court Lodga 
Mead, by M. B., March, 1735-6." 



ro THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 

which swine herded in hundreds, fattening on the mantes and 
acorns, which strewed the ground, and where doubtless many 
a Gurth and Wamba used to grumble over the hardships of 
their serfdom. 

Another and far more rare relic of feudalism remains in 

„ , ^ this manor, under the name of "head-silver," or 

Head-silver. ^ , , 

as it is sometimes called " smoke groat. * This 
charge is confined to the " ville " or township of the parish, 
and consists of a claim by the Lord of the Manor for the 
sum of " thirteen shillings and fourpence for the head-silver,t 
or common fine, that is to say, on every householder within 
the said ville, fourpence for himself, twopence for his appren- 
tice (a communicant), J and twopence for his servant, etc." 
By virtue of this payment every householder of the ville is 
free from the manorial claim for live heriot,% No doubt 
such exemption and all the other exemptions and privileges 
enjoyed under the tenure of gavelkind^ once extended over 
the whole parish, — ^as tradition, if not history, tells us it did 
over the whole county of Kent,|| but failed when the Manor 

* This name probably originated in the fact that in those days each 
house had but its single hearth. 

t The writer has failed to find any clue to the origin or date of this 
fine. It seems to be quite distinct from the common fine known as 
Cerf-money, or Km^a SiLwr^ which exists in many manors. 

% A striking instance of the responsibility thrown in olden times on 
the master to watch and promote the spiritual interests of his appren- 
tices, now unhappily too rarely realized. 

§ This peculiarity may be noticed, that, while the Heriot ordinarily 
belongs to the Court Baron, this fine of exemption belongs to the 
Court Leet. 

II Camden (Brit. p. 187) says, on the authority of old Thomas Spot, 
the monk (no ancient writer having anything of it), that the Kentish 
men, instead of resisting the Conqueror, surrendered to him on con- 
dition that they might have the free customs and rights of the'r 
country preserved entire ; that especially which they called gaTtUemd. 
Among other privileges, this conceded to them the right of transmit- 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. n 

was disgavelled in the 2nd and 3rd of Edward IV.* Still 
this singular partial exemption remains, and the specified 
amount must be collected yearly by the constable of the 
" Ville " by Michaelmas Day, and paid by him to the Steward 
of the Lord of the Manor at his Court Leet. 

For parochial purposes, also, this " Ville " forms one of 
the divisions of the parish, distinguishing the Tovm portion 
from the Upland, the compact northern part where the mass 
of the population Uve, from the Chart range and the Weald 
beyond. This division is still nominally retained in the 
appointment of Overseers ; and was so in that of Church- 
wardens until the year 1806, when, on the Rev. J. Gibbons 
being appointed to the Kving, it was agreed in Vestry that 
the Rector should nominate one, and the Parishioners elect 
the other Churchwarden. 

The " Ville " has also nominally an independent jurisdic- 
tion, having its own constable. An annual fair is held in 
it on Ascension Day. 

At the last survey, in 1844, the parish was calculated to 
comprise in round numbers, about 4,450 acres, of which 
some 1400 were woodland, 1450 pasture and private grounds, 
and 1600 arable, including about 110 appropriated to hop 
gardens ; which latter has been considerably increased during 
the subsequent thirty years. 

The parish is not without its local traditions. A field 
lying at the north-east corner is commonly TheBloodin's 
known by the name of " Bloodin's," and °®^^' 
local tradition traces this name to a bloody battle said to 

ting land by bequest or inheritance, or by sale without sanction of, or 
fine to, the Lord of the Manor. 
* Hasted, voL iii., p. 149. 



13 THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 

have been fought there. Now history tells us that nearly 
1000 years ago (a.d. 904), 130 years after the battle at 
Otford, between Offa and the Saxons, this Vale of Holmes- 
dale was the scene of "a fierce and sharp encounter" 
between the Saxons and the Danes, in which the Saxons, 
after a severe struggle, repelled their formidable invaders ; 
and it is very probable from its position that this field was 
the scene of one of the most deadly episodes of the battle.* 
" This victory," says quaint old William Lambarde, in his 
" Perambulations of Kent," published in 1576, "begat, I 
guess, the common byword used by the inhabitants of this 
vale, even till this present day, in which they vaunt after this 
manner : 

" The Vale of Hobnesdale 
Never wonne, and never shale." 

Here it may not be out of place to mention that from the 
date of that invasion of the Danes this valley seems to have 
escaped nearly all the political convulsions which have swept 
over England. Having made terms with the Conqueror^ 
the men of Kent were left in quiet possession of their old 
Saxon privileges and their free customs. The struggle be- 
tween Archbishop Stephen Langton and King John, and the 
dreadful interdict which resulted from it, may indeed have 
been felt here ; t but neither the long-sustained struggles 
between the Barons and the Crown, nor the wars of the 

* Human bones are occasionally ploughed up in this field. The 
chief battle was fought at Otford, the scene of which is still known by 
the name of the " Danefield." 

t It is possible that the single skeleton discovered a few years ago 
in the " Bloodin's" field, its limbs reverently disposed, and buried 
east and west, was a victim of that interdict, when rich and poor alike 
were denied Christian burial, and their bodies were placed in unconse- 
crated ground in waste places and ditches. 



THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED, 13 

Roses, appear to have disturbed the peace of this secluded 
vale ; even the rebellion of Wat Tyler in Richard II.'s reign, 
though of Kentish origin, was confined to the eastern and 
northern parts of the county. It is only in the " rising " of 
1450, when Jack Cade, " the clothier of Maidstone," at the 
head of his men of Kent, defeated and killed ^ ^ ^ , 

^ Jack Cade. 

Sir Humphrey Stafibrd at Sevenoaks, that Bras- 
ted was afiected ; a few of its inhabitants* are named in the 
official list of the misguided men, who, after their defeat on 
London Bridge, and the death of their leader, experienced 
the clemency of Henry VI. 

Now to return to more peaceful reminiscences. Under 
the Chalk hill runs what is still called " the Pilgrims' Road." 
It is now only a narrow lane ; f and by it the The pagrims* 
pilgrims, whether the West of England men •^^' 
from their great rendezvous at Winchester, or foreigners 
who landed at Southampton, would wend their way to the 
shrine of Thomas It-Becket at Canterbury, slaking their 
thirst as they passed along at the " Holy Well " close by, 
which to this day retains its name. Probably it was by this 
very road that Henry II. himself, in the month of July 1174, 
travelled in pilgrim garb to do penance — that great penance 
— at the tomb of the illustrious Prelate whom a hasty word 
of his had martyred. 

* "Ville de Brastede, et Lucate de Tunbrigge : Thomas Welde, 
Constabulariiis ; Rob[er]tu8 Parker ; Thomas Crowe ; Joh[aime]s 
Harry ; Nich[ol]as Dore ; Ric[ard]us Harry ; Rob[er]tiis Harry ; 
Georgiiis Jurdayn ; Willpebnujs Atte Meer ; Thomas Lake ; Joh[ami]es 
Brightrede ; Joh[anne]8 Swan, drover ; et EJc[ard]usPakke." Printed 
in ArchsBol. Cantiana, vol. vii. 253. 

t Dean Stanley thinks the pilgrims would have avoided for the most 
part the towns and villages and regular roads, probably for the same 
reason as "in the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, the highways 
were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byeways." — Hist. 
Memorials of Canterbury, p. 165. 



14 THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED. 

A portion of the chalk range above the Pilgrims' Boad 
is called "Hogtrough Hill," whether from its shape, the 

Hogtrough sides being so steep, and the ends terminating in 
^^- abrupt slopes, resembling an inverted hog- 
trough,* an object so familiar to the ancient denizens of 
this valley, or from some combination of the old Saxon 
word hooj how, hack, meaning " hill '* or " high ground," it is 
now difficult to say. 

As we cross the valley southward, old Saxon words con- 
front us on all sides, and enable us to trace out to some 

Old Saxon extent the leading features which the parish 
names, presented in the days "long, long ago." 

The " Chart "f was once, as its Saxon term for forest im- 
plies, a high range crowned with forest timber ; the home of 
the "universal wolf" and noble deer, where now no game 
larger than a fox or a rabbit can be found; below it spread for 
many miles east and west a more level tract of woodland, 
called the " Weald "J {wUd, or wood) ; here " hursts "§ still 
point out where grew clumps of loftier trees ; and " dens " (| 
mark where the land sloped away into woody glades ; and 

* Hogsback-hill, in Surrey, is supposed to have received its name 
from its shape. 

t The change in the sound from hard to soft c in c^art has tended 
to make the connection of this name with its Saxon original less clear^ 
In ancient Saxon, as in modem German, ch is never sounded soft. Ch 
hard and h are interchangeable letters ; and our word ''chart" with the 
simple h is still retained in many German forests, BALfndhaHyHtmharty 
Hartz mountains, etc. See '* Words and Places," by the Rev. Isaac 
Taylor, p. 381 ; to whom the writer is mainly indebted for these Saxon 
derivations. 

X This tract is the remains of the old Saxon wood of Andredesleah, 
which stretched for miles along the northern frontier of the kingdom 
of the South Saxons. Ihid, 

§ As in Lockhurst, Medhwrstj Mowshurd, Buckh/u/rd, etc. 

II As in Quariden, Somerden, Ley deny Dencross^ etc* 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 15 

^^ fields'* came^ as the busy woodman's 2^!^^ felled the 
timber to make clearings. Thence were the fertile pasture- 
lands spread out, where old Will Shakespeare gives us reason 
to believe that some four hundred years ago farmers used to 
carry on a lucrative calling, for he makes the landlord of the 
hostelry at £x)chester whisper to " one of St. Nicholas' Clerks'* 
(a highwayman), who stood at bis tap, of the arrival of " a 
frcmJdin (freeholder) in the Wild (clearly Weald) of Kent, 
who had brought 300 marks* with him in gold/'f 

It is noteworthy that this parish forms a counecting link 
between the two main rivers of the county, the Derwent and 
the Medway ; for the Derwent flows along its northern 
valley, and the Medway — or more accurately, its chief tribu- 
tary, the Eden — ^traverses its southern pasture lands. 

At the eastern entrance to the village, on the very verge 
of the parish, staQda Brasted Place or Park, g^^p^ 
The building which occupied this site above 
200 years was described by Philipott as being "venerable 
enough for its antiquity." The handsome mansion of to-day 
certainly agrees but little with that description, being a 
modern building in the Revived Classical style of architecture; 
yet it represents in its site a succession of older buildings, 
one of which was known at least 600 years ago aa StocketSyX 
and subsequently as Crow Place. This estate has its history, 
and we will endeavour to trace it. 

As early as the reign of Edward I., one Walter de 
Stocket held it (by the fourth part of a knight's fee) under 

* £200, giving tSs. 4d. to the mark ; a goodly sum in thcNse days, 
whatever fanners may think of it now. 

t First Part Henry IV., Act iL scene 1. 

X The name is variously written in okl deed»— Stok, Stock, Stoke, 
and Stockei. 



16 THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED. 

the Earl of Glo'ster and Hertford, already mentioned as 
Lord of the Manor. In the reign of Edward II., his son, 
Simon de Stocket, who succeeded him, added to the church a 
private chantry, which now forms the north transept. Simon's 
daughter Lora married Richard Boare, and with her (there 
being no son), the estate and the chapel passed to her husband, 
and remained in that family for three generations, until in 
the reign of Edward IV., their grandson, Nicholas Boare, 
dying without male issue, the property passed to Thomas 
Crowe, who had married his only daughter, Joane. The 
family of Crowe originally belonged to Norfolk, but had 
for some time possessed lands in this parish. In the Crowe 
family it remained till the latter end of- the reign of James I, 
It then passed to another Brasted family, the Heath's.* 

Robert Heath, the first of the family to own Brasted Place 
(though he apparently resided here but little), was a lawyer of 
note ; he was elected Recorder of London, then apppointed 
successively Solicitor and Attorney-General, and (a.d. 1631) 
was raised to the Bench as Chief Justice of the Court 
of Common Pleas. From this high office he was removed 
three years after ; f Lord Campbell, in his " Lives of the 
Chief Justices," J says it was on suspicion of bribery, § but the 
current beKef was that his known opposition to the extreme 
views of Abp. Laud, and to the imposition of Ship-money, 

* Hasted says by purchase ; but there was clearly a family connec- 
tion, the mother of Sir Robert Heath's wife being a daughter of Henry 
Crowe, as the monument in the chapel shows. 

t He says, in a memoir drawn up himself, " Noe cause was then, or 
at any time, shown for my removal" Quoted by Edward Foss, Esq., 
F.S.A., in an interesting paper on ''The Legal Celebrities of Kent," 
published in Archseol. Cantiana, vol. v., p. 32. 

t Vol. ii. 415. 

§ To this charge allusion is evidently made, and a repudiation con- 
tained, in the words upon his tomb, '* Jva-a dixit y dedit wumquamJ* 



THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED. 17 

was the real canse of his removal, to make room for the 
more plastic-minded and unscrupulous Sir John Finch, who 
succeeded hin^. The fact that he returned to favour, and 
seven years after (a.d. 1641) was appointed Chief Justice 
of the Court of King's Bench, would seem to be sufficient 
answer to the charge of bribery, and confirmatory of the 
view that his disgrace had a temporary and political origin. 
He was most loyal to his unhappy king to the last ; for 
which he was impeached, and his estates were sequestered ; 
and he only saved his life by escaping to France, in 1644, 
where he died in 1649. 

At the Restoration his eldest surviving son, Edward Heath, 
was reinstated in the family property ; but leaving no son, 
on his death the estate passed to his next brother, John, 
who also rose to some eminence at the bar, was made 
Attorney-General of the Duchy of Lancaster, and also re- 
ceived the honour of knighthood. 

Sir John Heath married Margaret Mennes, the daughter 
and heiress of Sir Matthew Mennes,* of Sandwich, in this 
county. This alliance, independently of its personal interest, 
brings this quiet Kentish village into connection with names 
of historic note. In her person Brasted received, on her 
mother's side, a lineal descendant of James V. of Scotland, 
(^through his natural son Robert, Earl of Orkney), and also 
through her maternal grandmother, a great-granddaughter of 
Katherine (Carey) the Countess of Nottingham, who with- 
held from Queen Elizabeth the ring sent to her by the Earl 



* She was daughter of Sir McMhew, not of Sir Jofm, as Douglas's 
Peerage of Scotland (Wood's ed.) says, vol. L p. 323 — and as Maidment 
in his '^ House of Carrick " repeats. In his will Sir Matthew Mennes 
speaks of her as '^ my daughter Margaret Pretyman {alids Mennes) ;" 
while Sir John in his calls her '' my niece^ Lady Heath." 

C 



i8 THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED. 

of Essex.* This connection with the ill-starred house of 
Stuart leads one irresistibly to contrast her career with that 
of her royal kinswoman, Mary Queen of Scots, on whose 
earlier life at the French Court, fortune shed her brightest 
beams only to make its close the darker and more sad ; while 
Margaret Mennes, as Lady Heath, still in youth, the widow 
of a man who had marred her early joys and left her almost 
penniless, found in her second husband one who, though he 
himself never forgot them, strove to make her forget, in the 
love and happiness of her Brasted home, the wrongs and 
wretchedness of her first marriage. 

Their only child, Margaret, married the Rev. George 
Vemey, in 1688, who is described in the Parish Register as 
" Fellow of New College at Oxon ; " to him she carried 
the Brasted property on her father's death, in 1601. He 
subsequently became Dean of Windsor, and succeeded to 
the family title as Lord Willoughby. His great-grandson, 
John Vemey, Lord Willoughby de Broke, sold Brasted 
Place to Lord Frederick Campbell ; who again sold it 
to Dr. John Turton, the favourite physician of George 
III. Dr. Turton made Brasted his home ; he pulled down 
the old house — ^probably even more deserving the term used 
by Philipott a century and a half before — ^and built the 
original portion of the present imposing classical structure. 

To his new house Dr. Turton transferred some interesting 
mementoes of royal favour ; for instance, the clock that now 
tells forth the time of day to the rural denizens of Blasted 
was a present from George III., and had once a far more 
exalted position, and the more public duty of striking out 
the hours, as the time-oracle of all London, from the clock 
turret at the Horse Guards. Also on the walls of the 

* More fully shown in the Genealogical Table in the Appendix. 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 19 

present billiard room is still preserved the paper which the 
Emperor of China had presented to the King, setting forth, 
in true oriental style of proportion and perspective, the 
various processes in the different arts and manufacture of the 
Celestial empire ; tea, porcelain, carving, etc. This was con- 
tributed by good Queen Charlotte for the adornment of her 
favourite physician's new country house. 

Dr. Turton, having no family, adopted his kinsman, Mr. 
Edmund Peters ; the son of Mrs. Peters, who became tho 
second wife of the Rev. J. Gibbons, the Rector of Brasted. 
This Mr. Edmund Peters assumed the name of Turton on 
succeeding to the property. 

From him it passed by sale to its present owner, W. 
Tipping, Esq., who has greatly enlarged and improved it; 
and of whom it may be said with truth, as regards his house 
and viUage property, 

^* Nil tetigit quod non omavit." 

We cannot pass on from Brasted Park without noticing 
one incident, which some years ago gave to it a public interest 
in connection with the late Emperor Napoleon III. It was 
for many months his retreat, while Prince Louis Napoleon : 
here the embryo aspirations of the future Emperor were being 
developed and matured ; here, with a trusty few adherents — 
the sage Montholon, who had shared the uncle's exile and 
was now the Nestor in the councils of the nephew, the 
more brilliant Persigny, and others, who all now, like their 
master, have passed away — ^he spent his time in planning 
and preparing for the recovery of his beloved France ; here, 
on the southern lawn, was the drilling ground of a handful 
of Imperialist recruits ; here was petted the tame eagle, the 
cherished symbol of victory, and a restored empire ; from 

c 2 



20 THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED. 

tiiis house^ did he^ with his little band^ eagle and all^ drive off 
one morning early in Angust 1840, to be heard of a few days 
after, as having landed at Boulogne, been seized by the 
troops, and carried off a prisoner to Ham I 

Passing on westward, from the entrance of Brasted Park, 
the main street stretches for half a mile along the valley, 
having on either side a few family residences, occupied by 
Miss Tyssen, J. G. Creasy, Esq.; the Misses Murray, Miss 
Mayers, and T. H. Street, Esq., and rows of shops and 
humbler cottages ; the whole having an air of comfort and 
respectability ; and combining, under the constantly pro- 
gressing improvements of the owner of Brasted Park, to give 
to the village street a cheerful and picturesque appearance. 

About midway on the south side stands the National 
School; with master's house adjoining ; it was built in 1861, 
imder the superintendence of the then rector, the B-ev. W. B. 
Holland, at a cost of about £1200 ; it has maintained a high 
state of efficiency imder Mr. J. Berry, who has been school- 
master since it was first opened. The previous school was a 
much more himible building in Church Lane, now divided 
into three tenements. 

To the south of the village street, on the lowest spur of 
the Chart range, stands out picturesquely, from a background 
of wood and heather-covered hill, a handsome modem castel- 
lated building, called " Hover's Wood," the residence of 
George Henderson, Esq. ; its name, with that of " Little 
Hover's Wood " behind it, clearly points to the time when 
both these estates formed part of the hunting and hawking- 
grounds of the Lords of Hever, whose Castle still stands 
just outside the southern boundary of the parish. 

A little further up the hillside stands a charming cottage, 
called " Vinesgate," lately occupied by W. H. Tyser, Esq. ; 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 21 

fin" some years the favourite summer residence of the late 
Dr. Alford (Dean of Canterbury), whose love of nature 
enabled him to revel in its charms ; for in one of the letters 
published in his Life * he speaks thus in glowing terms of its 
position : " I have heard of a farmhouse converted into a 
^ cottage om^e ' belonging to Mr. Tipping of Brasted Park ; 
it is in a most lovely spot, on a hill half-way up Toy's Hill, 
commanding a view down a wooded glen, over Lord Amherst's 
and Lord Stanhope's Parks, and away as far as Sevenoaks." 
And his classical mind found a fitting expression of his own 
daily enjoyment of the landscape in the descriptive line of 
Horace, which he had tastefully enscroUed on the waU of the 
sitting-room from which the most extensive view could.be 
obtained, 

*' Laudaturque domus longos quae prospicit agros." f 

Still higher up the ridge, embosomed in the forest timber 
which still in parts crowns the Chart, lies " Phillippines," the 
property of J. W. Faulkner, Esq., so called after the late 
Earl Stanhope, to whom it originally belonged ; and a httle 
beyond again, nearer to Ide Hill, stands " Emmetts," the 
residence of B. Gibbs, Esq. Beyond these, where the 
Chart has sloped down into the Weald, we meet with estates 
still bearing the names of families that have long since 
passed away, — Boomes, Seyliards, De la Wares, and others. 
The crest of this ridge is called " Toy's Hill," but the origin 
of this name seems to be buried in obscurity. 

On the opposite side of the village, nestling under the chalk 
range, is a picturesque farm-house with its goodly farmstead, 

* Life of Dean Alford, by his Widow, p. 389. 
t Horace, 1. Ep. 10, 23. 

''You praise the house whose situation yields 
An open prospect to the distant fields." (Francis.) 



22 THE HISTORY OF BRAS TEA 

now occupied by Mr. James Patching, which by its very name, 
" Court Lodge," carries the mind back through a succession 
of tenants to the time when it was doubtless the local resting- 
place of former Lords of the Manor. 

The Rectory House also stands on the north side of the 
village. The abode of the former Rectors was com- 
paratively a homely building of two storeys, lying 
back a little from the Rectory Lane, in what is now the 
orchard. It had been remodelled and nearly rebuilt by 
Dr., Barker, about the year 1700. But its position and dila- 
pidated condition induced Dr. Mill, on his appointment to the 
living in 1843, to erect a new and more commodious one on 
higher ground. The present Rectory is a handsome building 
in the Elizabethan style of domestic architecture, having three 
storeys, and double ridges running the whole length. It 
stands considerably above the level of the old one, and com- 
mands a beautiful view of the valley, with the village in the 
foreground, Hever's Wood and Vallence beyond, and Wester- 
ham, with its church and tower, closing in the landscape to 
the west ; and seen from that side, with its square-headed 
stone-mullioned windows and double gables, rising up out of 
its surroundings of beech and fir and yew, with a large 
graceful cedar on the lawn, itself presents a really striking 
coup d*oeil in this picturesque vale. 

In the reign of Edward I. the living was valued at 40 
marks* (about £26). In the King's Books (reign of Henry 
VIII.) it stands at £22 6s. Sd.f A hundred years later, in 
1650, when a commission of inquiry into Church property 
was appointed by the Parliament, it was returned as worth 

* ^tev. Mon., vol. i., p. 456. 
t Ecton's Thesaurus, p. 51L 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 23 

£90 a year from tithes, and having fifty acres of glebe land 
with seventy-eight of woodland.* Some fifty years after, in 
1708, the value had increased to £160 a year.f In 1844, the 
tithes were commuted at £760 a year : but the glebe is repre- 
sented as being under seventy acres. 

The high esteem in which this Uving has been always held 
may be seen from the following list of its Rectors, 
in which, among the names of some few relatives 
of successive archbishops, appear those of many very di*- 
tinguished divines, whose claims to preferment have been based 
on high intellectual attainments ; • such as Drs. Pearson, 
Bayly, Barker, and Mill ; and probably others, of whose career 
the writer has not succeeded in finding any record. 

The first Rector of whom any trace remains, was 

Edmund de Mepham. 

The exact period of his holding the living can only be a 
matter of conjecture ; but the character of his tomb, (to be 
referred to in describing the monuments of the church,) and 
also the circumstance of one of the same name, Simon de 
Mepham, being Archbishop of Canterbury from a.d. 1328 to 
A.D. 1333, would lead us to place him in the earlier half of 
the 14th century. Unfortunately, the Registers of the Arch 
bishops of Canterbury, preserved in the Library at Lambeth 
Palace, fail at this point ; those of the archiepiscopates of 
Walter Reynolds, Simon de Mepham, and John Stratford 
being not forthcoming. 

The names of the next nineteen Rectors, embracing a period 
of just two hundred years, have been collected by the writer 

* ParL Surv., Lambeth Library, vol xix. 

f MS. Notitia of Diocese and Peculiars, by Archbp. Wake. 



24 THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 

from the Lambeth Registers, through the courtesy of S. W. 
Kershaw, Esq., and are now given, it is believed, for the first 
time. But from the irregular and imperfect character of the 
entries at that early date, the line of succession is occasionally 
broken. 

The first entry that appears relative to Brasted is that of 

Thomas de Neyland, who resigned a.d. 1356. (Reg. 
Simon de Islep.) 

RiCHAKD DE Hankeden, exchanged a.d. 1365 (Reg. 
Simon de Sudbury) with 

John Aleyn, who also exchanged a.d. 1377 (Ibid.) with 

John de Elme, appointed a.d. 1377. 

Philip Rogers, vacated a.d. 1388. (Reg. W. Courteney.) 

John Mawdit, M.A., Chaplain to Abp. Courteney, ap- 
pointed A.D. 1388. (Ibid.) 

John Chandeler, M.A., Chaplain to Abp. Chichelle, 
appointed A.D. 1419. (Reg. Abp. Chichelle.) 

William Sprencer, D.D., appointed a.d. 1431. (Ibid.) 

Thomas Writington, a.d. 1449, exchanged (Reg. Abp. 
Staflbrd) with 

John Chamberleyn, Chaplain to Abp» Stafford, appointed 
A.D. 1449. (Ibid.) 

William Shirewode, vacated a.d. 1474. (Reg. Abp. 
Kemp.) 

John Cralle, alias John de Sudbury, a.d. 1474, resigned 
1475. (Ibid.) 

Robert Pemberton, Chaplain to Abp. Kemp, appointed 
A.D. 1475. (Ibid.) 

Richard Benger, D.D., a.d. 1523 to a.d. 1529. (Reg. 
Abp. Warham.) 

Dr. Benger was Scholar and Fellow of New College, Oxford. 
He was "Decretorum Doctor," and Commissary (Vice Chan- 



'E HISTORY OF BRASTEl 

'.rham, the then Chancellor of 

520-1522. In 1520 he was ] 

ton Barnes, or Bemes, Wilts. 

Warden of New College, *( 

his friend and patron, Ahj 

us death. 

M.A., A.D. 1529, resign 

M.A. A.D. 1537. (Ibid, 

died A.D. 1556. (Reg 

IE, M.A., A.D, 1556, 

er.) 

., A.D. 1559, resign 

Longland in 1559, tl 
ie See of Canterbur 
\n Longland who in I 
Idngham, suspended 
'stored in 1559. ^ I 
) which chapter th 
suggests his conn( : 
his bringing him i i 
'. Mr. Longland, i 
s in 1562. He ; 
'., and was buriei 
ype's memoirs.) 

irioTisly spelt 
592. 

9, Cambridge 
selected bin: 
noner, and a 
's executors 
earning; a 
itrusted to : 
, and Chid 



26 THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED, 

was in 1568 also appointed to a prebendal stall at Oanterbory. 
(Strype's Life of Parker.) 

Lawrence Deipste, or Dyos, from a.d. 1592 to a.d. 1618. 

This name, as far as the wri^r has been able to discover, is in- 
serted for the first time in the list of Brasted Bectors. It occurs 
at the foot of each page of the Register daring those twenty-six 
years. It is there spelt Deioste; but the entry of his bnrial, 
made by his successor, Dr. Eichard Smith, runs as follows : — 

** Lawrence Dyos, Rector of Brasted, dyed on the 24 day of 
December, at night, 1618, and was buryed the 27 of December." 

Eichard Smith, from a.d. 1618 to a.d. 1626. 

Morgan Wynne, (also spelt Wiime and Win,) from a.d. 
1626 to A.D. 1639. 

Both these names are also given on the authority of the Registers, 
where they occur regularly at each page, for the respective periods. 
Dr. Win is mentioned in a memo on the fly-page of one of the 
Registers as being also Archdeacon of Lincoln. Every entry of 
baptism or burial of a member of Dr. Wynne's family is in Latin. 
It is noteworthy, too, that in the baptismal entries prior to 1680, 
the word baptizatus is used ; in all subsequent ones renatvs. 

Thomas Bayly, from a.d. 1640 to a.d. 1641. 

Hasted spells this name Bailey, and gives the date '< about 1684," 
but in 1689 is the entry of a burial of a daughter of Morgan 
Wynne, and he is still called " Rector hujus parochiaB;" nor does 
the change of handwriting occur in the Registers till 1640, in which 
year Dr. T. Bayly's signature first appears. 

According to Anthony Wood (Athen. Oxon., vol. ii, p. 526), he 
was a man of great attainments. He was also Prebendary of 
Lincoln. Being a strong Royalist, he was ejected from all his 
church preferments ** in the time of the troubles." The Puritan 
writer, White, gives prominence to him in his " First Century of 
Scandalous Priests." After the Restoration Dr. Bayly was made 
Dean of Down, and afterwards, in 1664, Bishop of Killaloe, << as a 
reward for his sufferings and loyalty." (Hasted, iii. 167, quoting 
Walker's " Sufferings of the Clergy," p. 202.) 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTED, 

John Saltmarsh, from a.d. 1642 to December, i 

He was educated at Magdalen College, Cambridge, i 
esteemed a person of fine and active fancy, no contem] 
and a good preacher," (Fuller's Worthies, quoted b 
Wood, Athen. Oxon, vol. iii.,p. 677). Wood adds, " Up 
of the times in 1641, he, as a mutable man, became, oj i 
observer, a violent opposer of Bishops and ceremonies.' 
appointed Minister of Brasted, and Chaplain in the Pai i 
Army under Fairfax, He was the author of a multitu( 
tises on the politico-religious events of the times. He 'V I 
him (says Wood) the character of a bigoted enthusiast.' 

John Watte. 

Without the date of his appointment or death, t ; 
mentary Survey, in Lambeth Library (vol. xix.), mereb 
name as minister in 1650. He was no doubt put in by Pi 
as the report pronounces favourably of his ability and : i 
parish. 

William Pindar, D.D,, a.d. 1661 to a.d. 16 

The Eegisters are wholly wanting between 1641 and ] : 
though complete from the latter year, with the excepti : 
three years 1680-82, they give no clue to the name of a i 
before the year 1693, in which year occurs a memo on tl ; 
by the Rev. R. Barker, that, ** October 19th, 1698, Dr. Pi i 
and the Archbishop gave the Living to him, being at th i 
Grace's Chaplain." 

Ralph Barker, from a.d. 1693 to a.d. 1708. 
erroneoTisly calls him Robert,) 

On the fly-leaf of the Parish Register appears also the i : 
" Ralph Barker, D.D., Treasurer of the Church of Y 
Rector of this Parish, a learned and worthy person, who | 
the posthumous works of Archbishop Tillotson, died ii 
1708," in the handwriting of his successor* 

Michael Bull, A.M., from a.d. 1708 to a.d. II 
Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Hi 



28 THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 

William Bull, died here in 1712. To the entry of the burial in the 
Register is added this fihal testimony to his worth : — 

" Quantum tui, optime pater, desiderium reliquisti ! " 

During the fifty-five years of his incumbency the Register records 
and all memoranda connected with the parish were kept with 
unprecedented care; he died in the Rectory, and was buried in 
the chancel. 

Geobgb Secker, D.D., from a.d. 1763 to a.d. 1768. 

He was nephew to Archbishop Secker ; he held also a Canonry in 
St. Paul's, and was Rector of Allhallows, Thames Street, London. 
He was buried in the chancel, as a plain stone slab^ now much 
broken, testifies. 

James Parker, A.M., from a.d. 1768 to a.d. 1772. 
William Vyse, D.C.L., from a.d. 1773 to a.d. 1777. 

He had been Domestic Chaplain to Archbishop ComwaUis, 
became Archdeacon of Coventry, Canon and Chancellor of Lich- 
field ; and resigned Brasted, on being appointed to the jomt 
Rectories of Lambeth and Sundridge. He was buried at Sun- 
dridge, where his hatchment still hangs. 

Thomas Franklin, D.D., from 1777 to 1784. 

A brilliant Westminster scholar, and afterwards Master ; Professor 
of Greek at Cambridge, and Rector of Ware, Herts. He was 
a voluminous writer, on classical and scientific subjects ; and 
published a volume of sermons of note. In 1769, he was appointed 
one of the Chaplains to His Majesty. He was an intimate friend 
of Dr. Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith. He was buried in the 
chancel ; but no trace of his grave remains. 

William Skinner, from 1784 to 1795. 
George Moore, A.M. from 1795 to 1808. 

The eldest son of Archbishop Moore. He resigned Brasted when 
appointed to the Rectory of Wrotham ; he was also Vicar of East 
Peckham, and Prebendary of Canterbury, He died in 1846. 



30 THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 

The Church, which is dedicated to St. Martin, stands on a 
slight rising ground about a quarter of a mile to 
the north of the village street. In the road 
leading to it, called Church Lane, are a few cottages with 
neat plots of garden-ground attached. In close proximity to the 
churchyard-gate stands a public-house called " the Stanhope 
Arms," where the Lords of the Manor have from time imme- 
morial held their courts. 

With the exception of the tower, the present church is 
throughout a recent structure, having been built from the 
foundation in 1866, from designs by Mr. Waterhouse. The 
late Rector, the Rev. W. B. Holland, had planned a careful 
restoration of the venerable but dilapidated fabric, at a cost 
of £1,600 ; but he did not live to carry it out. On the ap- 
pointment of his successor, the Rev. C. T. Astley, a far more 
extensive system of repairs was decided upon, which resulted 
in the erection of an entirely new building, at the cost of 
£3,790. 

In the demolition one relic of rare Archaic interest has been 
preserved,* — a very roughly wrought stone, with a plain cross 
in bold relief of three or four inches. It was brought to light 
when the work of demolition was going on, having been built 
into the north wall of the old chancel : any arched recess which 
may originally have protected and displayed it had been com- 
pletely built up. Placed longitudinally within the chancel as 
a sepulchral slab, it doubtless had once marked the burial-place 
of one of the earliest ecclesiastics of the Church. Perhaps 
it was the cofiSn lid or tombstone of some still older Roman 
Christian, whose bones had been displaced to make way for 



* Unconsciously, it would seem, iox it has been thrust aside, as though 
ahnost valueless, and built upright in the outer wall of the vestry. 



HISTORY OF BRASTED 

»,overy established the fact 
han a thousand years ag 
on kingdom ; and this vi 
• discovery, beyond the ej 
)undation of what had cl 
axon church.t 
t stood before the rebul 
1 to the writer is to b< 
f of 1846, and also in a 
. This happily enables I 
,1 landmarks of a bui I 
past, 
nave, visible on tl 
'n, there was a sing i 
in handi^t^ork, and i 
the eleventh cent 
•ly pointed archil i 
> doubt been rebi i 
ry — ^probably ab 
vestiges of a tr | 
iplayed single la i 
Ms early chanc i 
writer alluc • 
3 five-light w 

id in Domesday 
xon work of t 
impact; that i I 

\ and corroli 
the north si i 

for the ini; 
I re-insert<i 



32 THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED. 

Third Pointed Period has replaced the eastern triplet ; and the 
slender banded shafts of the outer lancets, left in the jambs 
of the modem insertion, only show us what we have lost." 

About fifty years after the elegant Early English chancel 
had been raised, in the place of the ruder one of Saxon times 
already mentioned, an important addition was made to the 
nave, by throwing out transeptwise to the north a chantry or 
private chapel, which was adorned with a good geometric 
window. Hasted,* alluding to this chapel, gives to it an ap- 
proximate date, corresponding exactly with the character of 
the window. He says it was built by Simon de Stocket, 
the then owner of Brasted Place, in th6 reign of Edward I. ; 
that is, between 1272 and ISOT.f 

In the rebuilding, the north wall of this Chapel (now 
the north transept), with its elegant and well-proportioned 
geometric window, was carefully restored, and a piscina 
though dilapidated, replaced in its east wall, under the 
supervision of W. Tipping, Esq., of Brasted Park, with 
which estate, as already mentioned, the right to this private 
chapel has always passed, whether by marriage or by sale. 

With this exception, and the preservation of the single 
lancet window in the north waU of the chancel, and the four 
pillars and arches on the south side of the nave, not a vestige 
of the earlier building remains — ^not one feature of the old 
church has been preserved. All is new. The south transept 
has been lengthened, the south aisle widened to its original 
size ; X a north aisle has been added to the nave; and a large 

* See p. 16. 

t Probably about the beginning of the last century a south tran- 
sept was added ; but it was of the baldest, without any attempt at 
architectural character or beauty. 

X The south aisle had been narrowed at some period of parochial 
economy, and been reduced to a mere lean-to ; the old foundations 
were discovered some feet beyond the modem badly built wall. 



THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED, 33 

space to the south-east, called a chancel aisle, built out for the 
use of the school children. Still, while it is to be regretted that 
architectural proportions and design seem to have been but 
little cared for in the side aisles, in the desire for increased 
accommodation, it is impossible to enter the western door with- 
out being favourably impressed with the general appearance 
of the nave ; the symmetry and grace of the vista of Early 
English arches on either side, the lightness of the lofty chancel 
arch, and the bold tracery of the Perpendicular east window, 
present on the whole a pleasing and harmonious combination; 
the effect of which would, however, be greatly enhanced by 
the presence of a little ornament and colour. 

A richly carved old oak parclose, or screen, still crosses the 
bay of the north transept ; but a much more ancient and bold 
rood screen previously crossed the chancel arch, which has 
not been replaced. 

Distributed in almost grotesque disorder over the several 
lights of the east window are coats of arms, and coats 
fragments of coats of arms, and of canopy work, ^^ Arms. 
and scrolls, and emblems, which once had their fitting places 
in earlier windows, and told to successive generations the tale 
of the Church's benefactors; — ^a tale which is now to be picked 
out only by conjecture, from the mutilated and confused pieces 
of patchwork. 

One fine specimen of early art happily remains in a fairly 
good state of preservation. The royal arms, as assumed by 
Edward III. — ^the three leopards of England and the three 
fleurs de lys of France quarterly, surrounded by the ribbon 
and motto of the Order of the Garter — clearly point to Balph 
de Stafford,* who succeeded to the manor by marriage with 

* See p. 6. 



34 THE HISTORY OF BRASTED, 

the daughter and heiress of Hugh de Audley, Earl of Glo'ster. 
This coat of arms, and a second, of which only a few frag- 
ments remain,* were doubtless inserted by him in token 
of gratitude to his royal patron, by whom he had been made 
one of the first Knights of the Garter, on its foundation in 
1349, and soon after created Earl of Stafibrd. 

The next in point of age are the two shields, with the arms 
of the See of Canterbury impaling the arms of Archbishop 
Warham (field gule^y with a bar or, between a goat's head 
and three scollop shells), which were probably inserted by Dr. 
Kichard Benger, who was nominated to this Rectory by that 
Primate in 1523. These have still graver cauBe for remon- 
strance against the ruthless treatment they have experienced, 
the two sides having been wantonly divorced, and in one 
case a piece of ground glass, containing a very feeble mono- 
gram (I.H.S.), and in the other a red rose, inserted between ! 

Dr. George Seeker has doubly recorded his connection with 
the church : one shield, containing the arms of Canterbury 
impaling those of Seeker, with the inscription, "Thos. Cantuar, 
MDCCLViii," testifies his gratitude to his uncle and patron ; 
another contains his own arms, with those of his wife perpaley 
and underneath, " Geo. Seeker, D.D., mdcclxi ; " both these 
shields are rather gorgeously mantled. 

In this window are also several coats of arms which evidently 
belong to the north transept ; for instance, those of the Crow 
family, {ffules with chevron or between three cocks argent) 
of which one shield is in good preservation ; but another, 
containing the Crow arms, quartering another coat which 

* The second border, with its motto, remains tolerably perfect ; and 
two quarries containing the three leopards, one upside-down and the 
other perpendicular with the heads downwards, are inserted in one of 
the jumbles of stained glass. 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTED, 

has been mutilated past deciphering, has 'been 
the wrong side of the glass inwards, the figures 
standing reverse-wise. 

There is a shield containing the arms of C 
Priory, Canterbury, now the Deanery ; and a sec 
same, impaling Parker ; but no connection can 
tween the Deanery and Brasted to account for it 
here. 

Besides these are some shields filled in yA\ 
of fragments of scrolls, inscriptions, canopiei 
Several coats, as those of the StocketSy Boan 
and others, mentioned by Hasted and Thorpe, 
disappeared, or are only just recognizable amon^ 
fragments. 

Of the monuments, the rough stone with a bol 
built upright into the back wall of the vestry, but 
formerly laid along in the north wall of the chancel^ 
for which we have conjectured a Saxon origin,* is 
the most ancient. Next to it in age comes the stom 
in the chancel, near the vestry door,t bearing ii 
literated letters the following border inscription, in 
character : " Hie jacet Magister Edmundus d 
Doctor Sacre Theologie, quondam Rector hujus ec 
anime propicietur Deus." (" Here lies Mr. Edmu: 
Doctor of Divinity, formerly Rector of this churc 
soul may God have mercy.") In the centre o 
remains the impress of a very beautiful foliated cro 
of which has disappeared, and above it that of a 
of a priest. By comparing this with similar stor 

• See p. 29. 

t Bemoyed from its original position in the centre of 
lying with the head to the east ! 



36 THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 

and SaKsbury Cathedrals, of which the age is known, its 
date may be approximately fixed as between 1340 and 1350. 
This, giving a few years' margin for the word " quondam " 
(formerly), would place this Rector during the archiepiscopate 
of his namesake and probable kinsman, Simon de Mepham. 

In the north of the Heath Chapel stands a handsome 
monument of black marble, with the recumbent figures of a 
Judge in full robes and cap with SSS collar, and a lady on 
his left hand, in alabaster ; underneath is an inscription, show- 
ing that they represent Sir Robert Heath and his wife 
Margaret, and giving the following family details : — 

Ble BoBTi. Heath, Ar Fs. et Hoer. 

Ex Anna filia et cohaerede Nigholai Posieb, Gen., 

lUa JoHANNis MniLEB, Gen. Fa. et Hoer. 

£x MartA filia Henrigi Cbow, Gen. 

Sascepemnt sex filios et tres filias, 

Annah, Bobebtum, Elizabetham, sine, p[ro]le p[re]mortnos j 

snperstites, 
Mabiam, Edwabdum, Johannem, Geobgium, Bobebtum, Fban- 

CISOAM ; 

Qnornndam [aic.] pietate parentom memoriis erigitnr 

Hoc Sacbum.* 

On a black marble slab, inserted in a handsome scrolled and 
gilded mural tomb of that date, is the following fuller account 

* He was the son and heir of Bobert Heath, Esq., by Anne, daugh- 
ter and co-heiress of Mr. Nicholas Posier ; she was the daughter and 
heiress of Mr, John Miller, by Maria, daughter of Mr. Henry Crow. 

They had six sons and three daughters, Anne, Bobert, and Eliza- 
beth, who died before them, leaving no issue ; Maria, Edward,* John, 
George,* Bobert, and Francis, who survived them ; by whose piety this 
tomb is erected to the memory of their parents. 

' Succeeded his father, but left no family. See p. 17. 
' Succeeded his brother Edward, and became Attorney- General of the Duchy 
of Lancaster ; he died in 1691, and was buried here. 
' Hector oi West Grinstead, Sussex, and was buried here. 



r 



THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED. 37 

of the life and character of the late Chief Justice and the Lady 
Margaret his wife :— 

RoBERTUs Heath, Eq. An. 
Capitalis Placitoru Comun Justiciarius Ano Domii mdcxxxt. 
Abhinc Servians ad legem minimus descendit orator ; 
Discuss a FortunsB nebula resurgens, 
Capitalis Banci Begii Justiciarii^s Ano Domii mdcxxxxi. 
Susque deque movente fortuna imotus ipse, 
Utriusque Banci decus, jura dixit, dedit nunquam ; 
Suadela potens, urbanitate aureus, patientia ferreus, 
Severus ac mitis, perditos nee ferre potuit nee ferire ; 
Inter lites quietem amavit, inter simultates veritatem ; 
Propter fidelitatem Begi intemeratam proscriptus, 
Extra patriam Caleti diem obiit XXmo. Augsti. Ano Domii Mt>GXLix. 

(Etat Lxxv.* 
Mabgabita uxor, venustate pudiea, gravitate suaTis, frugs^tate 

splendida, 
Puerperiis senio morbis confecta occubuit 
Ho. Decembris Ano Domii mdcxlvh. (Etat Lvm. 

* The following is offered with much diffidence as a somewhat bald 
translation of the above laboured Latin : — 

Sia BoBEBT Heath, Kt. 

Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, a.d. 1631. 

From whence he came down to practise as the Junior Serjeant-at-Law ; 

Bising again, when the cloud of misfortime was dispelled, 

As Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, a.d. 1641. 

Up and down though Fortune moved, unmoved himself^ 

The ornament of either Bench, he dealt out, never dealt in^ justice/ 

Powerfully persuasive, with golden polish, and iron endurance ; 

Strict, yet kindly, he could not tolerate, nor yet be intolerant to^. ther 

depraved." 
In the midst of strife he loved peace, amid duplicity truth : 
Proscribed for his unswerving fidelity to his King, 
He died in exile at Calais, the 20th day of August, ArD. 1649. 

Aged 75. 

' Here is clearly a designed repudiation of the charge of bribery brought 
against him according to Lord Campbell ; and also perhaps by implication in 
the expression in^<?meratom /d^ito^i. See page 16. 

' It is very difficult to convey in English the play upon the Latin words 
diaBitf dedit nufiguamt as also, two lines below, in the words /erre and/enre. 



38 THE HISTORY OF BRASTED, 

On a plainer mural tablet near the side window of the 
Heath Chapel is the following epitaph to the memory of 
the wife of his son, Sir John Heath, Kt. 

Mabgabita Menkes 
Domini Math£i Mennes, Balnei Militis, et 

Domince MABOABITiB STUABTiE, 

(JoHANNis Stuabti, Oomitis Cabecti, 

Jacobi Yti., Sootobuh Regis nepotis, 

Ex Domina ElizabethA filia Caboli, 

Primi Howabdobum Comitis Notinoham, 

Filise et haBredis,) 

Filia et hsBres. 

Ulustri prosapia clara, virtnte clarior, 

Ore vennsta, moribns spectatissima, panperibns mimifiea, 

Tredecim Annomm PupiLiiAy vennmdata nupta, 

Splendido mox patrimonio frande minnta ; dem YmuAy 

Post JoHANNi Heath, Eq. Aur. conjnz placidissima; 

Filiam Maboabftam reliquit nnicam 

Marito, amoris pignns, doloris levamen ; 

Qui dilectissimsB conjagis M.S. hoc moerens posnit. 

XXYEIIo Decembris Ano Domii MDCXXXVo nata ; 

XIHo Junij Ano MDCLXVIo occubuit. 

Seldom do we meet with an epitaph that tells its tale so 
tersely and yet so clearly ; qnite as mnch by what it sup- 
presses as by what it discloses. To attempt a literal trans- 
lation would indeed be a difficult task. Here we haye in a 
very few hues the history of a beautiful and richly dowered 
girl, left for thirteen years without a mother's care and 
guidance, while yet under age bartered like a slave to a 
boy husband, (for it appears they were both minors when 
married ;) robbed of her patrimony, and left a widow when 
barely one and twenty, to spend some eight years in straitened 
circumstances, till she found, in the appreciative love of her 
second husband^ a solace for the remaining years of her life ; 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTED, 

which closed at the comparatively early age of 
withering the scorn of silence with which Sir 
while expatiating on her beanty and her worl 
very name of her first husband, which he does 
pollute her tomb * 

At the top of this monument are the fan 
Heath and Mennes perpale : on the dexter si< 
fourth, Heath {argent, cross engrailed gulesj bei 
billets) ; second {gules, a bend argent with ti 
gules, between two cotizes indented or) ; third (e 
between three foxes' heads erased) : on the sinis 
and fourth Mennes {gules, chevron vaird betweei 
heads or); second Scotland {or, lion rampant 
a border) ; third {argent, ship azure within a bor 

Close by, on either side of the north window, a 

oval tablets recording the deaths, in infancy, of 

and great-granddaughter of this good Lady 

Heath, whose only daughter Margaret had marr 

and Rev. George Vemey.f The inscriptions run \ 

In memory of 
Geoboe, eldest son of 
The Hon. G. k Maby Verney, 
Whose blooming virtues, pregnant parts 
Ai)4 beauteous frame, made all that knew 1: 
Wish his stay on earth. But he with pious I 
Resigned his soul at seven years, ripe for hei 
Bom October ISth, 1689 : died March 16th, 
Not age but virtue makes us fit to die. 
Be innocent as babes, 
And live eternally. 

* The wills of her father, and her uncle Sir John ^ 
Prerogative Court, disclose enough to enable us to fill 
sketch. The name of her unworthy husband we there 
John Pretyman, of Hominghold, Leicestershire, who di< 

f See p. 18. 



40 THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 

In memory of 

Mabgabet, the daughter of 

The Hon. John & Abigail Yebnet. 

She was bom 27th day of Aagnst, 1726, 

And died on the 14th day of November, 17B3. 

Their parents with submissive grief resigned 

Their most endearing offspring and greatest earthly bles^g 

Into the hands of God who gave it. 

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away ; 

Blessed be the name c^ the Lord. 

Of such is the kingdom of heaven.* 

Two other monuments of recent date bring ns down to the 
later owners of Brasted Park : they are both the work of the 
eminent Boyal Academician, Sir Richard Westmacott. 

A massive white marble monument, with a sarcophagus, 
on which are placed a Bible and Prayer Book, and a snake 
coiled round a club, proclaims quite as much the love of the 
widow as the praises of the eminent physician of Greorge III. 

Maby, the wife of John Turton, M.B., 

caused this monument to be erected 

to the memory of her beloved husband. 

Eminently skilled in the medical art, 

He saved or lengthened the lives of others ; 

His own, alas ! this marble tells us no art could save. 



With full hope in Christ of life to come immortsJ,, 
He died April 14th, 1806^ aged 70. 

By its side is a much smaller and plainer monument, with 
a figure of a man absorbed in grief, leaning upon a broken 
pillar, which bears on its face the words " To Gratitude ;" it 
has the following : — 

'*' Beneath this is a tombstone marking her grave» 



THE HISTORY OF BRAS TEL 

To the memory of 

Maby Tubton, 

Widow of John Tubton, 

Who died on January 28fch, 1810, aged 6^ 

This monument was erected by 

Edmund Turton, Esq., of Brasted Pai • 

The other momiments of any date, which for 
the chancel, hare been moved into the basemen I 
Conspicuous among them is an altar tomb with i 
slab, bearing the following inscription : — 

Here lyeth the body of Dorothe, daughter of \ \ 
Crowmer,t of Tunstall in Kent, Esquire, first : 
WiUiam SeyHard, of Brasted, Esqre., by whoi i 
Issue, Thomas, John, James, Ann, William, a: i 
All surviving her ; as alsoe Elizabeth, Willian 
George, who died before her ; secondly marric • 
Eichard Berisford, of Westerham, Esqre., by ^i 
She had issue Jane, Mary, and William. Ha^ 
A vertuous and reh'gious life, she dyed, July S ! 
1618, in the 50th year of her age. 

At the head, inserted in white marble, are 
coat of arms, in lozenge, quarterly, first and foi 
{argent, chevron engrailed sable, between three c: 
second and third Squiery or Sqtiiers, {argent, a 
ing anut gules.) In shields at the feet, repress 
marriages, are the arms of Seyliard {azure, a chii 
paling Crowmer, and those of Berisford {argei\ 
pant, collared, chained, and muzzled, or) impali 

* The son of Mrs. Peters, who was adopted by Dr, 
took his name with the estate. 

t A WiUiam Crowmer, o£ Tunstall, married a daught( 
and was beheaded with his father-in-law by '^ Jack Ca*: 



42 THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 

Above the tomb, inserted in the wall, is the following 
epitaph of another member of the Seyliard family : — 

Chbista mobs lvcbvs vitvm.* 

S*» M« S* 
MABGABITAy SFECTATISSIMA VIBTYTE ET PIETATE 

F^MiNA, Thom^ Setliabd (ex GLABA 
Seyliabdobym familia De-la- Wabe) oenebosi ykiga 

FiLIA ET HiEBES ; BOBEBTO, FUilO ET HiEBEDI 

Fbangisgi Bogebo de Dabtfobd, Abmigebi, envpta ; 

OVI SEX optima SPEI LIBEBOS (dVOBVS ALUS, 

Fbangisgo AG Helena, mobtyis) liqyit sypebstites ; 
Annam, Thomam, Fbangisgym, Eobebtym, Dobotheam, 
johannem ; hyiys pyebpebio expibans, goniygi 

AmANTISSIMO, (qYI HOG LYGENS POSYIt) M(EB0BEM, 

Matbonis exemplar yibtytym, bonis OMNIBYS 

Syi desidebiym beliqyit. ^Et. 88. Ogtob. 15, 1616. 

Thomas et Alicia, pabentes eiys, 

PlENTISSIMA, HIO ETIAM lYXTA 

Cybant, ambo ogtogenabii, sed non 

TaM ANNIS, QYAM LYGTY PBJBBEPTiB 

FlLlJE GONFEGTI. IlLE 15 ApBIL. IlLA Matt 1, 

1616. 

Translation: — ^Margaret, a lady conspicaons for virtue and 
piety, the only daughter and heiress of Thomas Seyliard, gentle- 
man (of the illustrious family of the Seyliards of De la Ware), 
married to Robert, son and heir of Francis Rogers, of Dartford, 
Esquire, to whom she left, surviving herself, six children of 
highest promise (two others, Francis and Helena, having died) : 
Anna, Thotnas, Francis, Robert, Dorothy, John ; dying in child- 
birth of this last, to her most loving husband (who, grieving^ 
erected this) -she left a sorrow, to mothers an example of virtues, 
to all good men a regret. Aged 88. October 15, 1615. 

* So egregious are the blunders in these four words, that a trans- 
lation of them is impossible. They were probably meant for ** Chbistus 
VITA, MOBS lucbum." To live is Christ, to die is gain (Phil. i. 21) ; 
a very common form of epitaph. 



rSTORY OF BRASTEL 

e most pions Alicia, 
also close by ; 
rs of age, bnt dying, 
years as of grief 
)r taken before them. 
15th April, she on the 1 
1616. 

are the Seyliard ai 

irs have become so 

hem the respective f; 

ne containing the a 

5s courant), and tl 

ng Rogers. 

nail white marb 

^r. M. BuU, also 

1 the chancel. ' 

)mory of 

!HAEL Bull, 

atitnde from one 

\g hand in earl]) 

ector of Braste 

nend of his f[( 

igost, A.D. 17c 

this chancel. 
' his gt.-nepl 
uris. 



\ Bull's fat] 

srho died j 

il wife, wh 

ler remaii 

rringtott 



44 THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 

One more tablet placed in the tower remains to be men- 
tioned, the inscription of which is as follows : — 

In an adjoining yault is buried 

William Walton, 

Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, King's Connsel, 

and for two and twenty years 

Attorney-General of the Duchy of Lancaster, 

Honoured as a Lawyer, 

for assiduity and spotless integrity, 

no less than for 

knowledge at once extensive and profound ; 

Beloved aHke as a friend, a father, and a husband, 

for the open simplicity of his character, 

the serenity of his mind^ 

and the steadiness of his affections. 

By the mercy of God 

he closed a long, blameless, and honourable £fe, 

with a peaceful death, 

in the faith of a Christian, 

and the hope of a blessed resurrection. 



He was born 28th of March, a.d^ 1757^ 

called to the Bar a.d. 1787, 

married on the 18th of April, a.d. 1789, 

to Maby^ eldest daughter of Samuel Bboo£e, Esqre., 

formerly of Birchington, 

in the Isle of Thanet and County of Kent ; 

and died at Brasted 15th day of April, a.d. 1888, 

Aged 76 ; 
. leaving one son and two surviving daughters. 
His widow pays this last tribute 
to his memory. 

On a large stone in the centre of the chancel appears the 
following :— * 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTE. 

Here lyeth interred the body of 

Mr. William Newman, late of 

this parish, who departed this lif< 

le 23rd of April, 1786. Aged 8< 



Qd also Ann Newman, his wife, 
)d this life the 17th of Noveml i 
Aged 62. 

nore modest in appearance 
rth and south I) is a grav 
Q Rectory, Dr. James P i 
s of his appointment to I 

To the Memory of 

ATTEE PaBEEB, wifo of 

Rev. Dr. Parker, 
-or of this Parish. 
9th, 1768. Aged 87 y : 

chancel aisle is a sm 
'ption : — 

the Memory of 
7 Cboasdaile, 
8rd, 1784 : aged 
^exandeb Cboas: 
^.ansted, Esq., hei 
wenty-four child 
31. m\Ai 66 y 
is erected by \ 
ugh the mercie 
Blessed Savi< 
again.* 

^Jie Cbow an 



46 THE HISTORY OF BRASTED, 

In the south wall of the chancel aisle are two monuments 
to members of a family, still remaining and highly respected, 
in the parish. 

Sacred 

To the Memory of 

John Pollabd Mayebs, Esqre., 

of Staple Grove, Barbados, and of this Parish, 

Bencher of the Middle Temple, and for upwards of twenty years 

Bepresentative of the Legislature 
of the above Island in this Country. 
Bom March 26, 1775 ; 
Died December 30, 1853. 



( Undemeathy on a smaller slab,) 

Sacred to the Memory of 

Ann, the beloved wife of 

John Pollabd Mayebs, 

of the Island of Barbados, 

and of this Parish, Esquire. 

Died 6th September, 1847. Aged 68. 

Of late years the good old custom has been revived of 
substituting stained-glass windows, by which churches are 
beautified, for ponderous slabs of sculptured marble, by which 
they are too often disfigured ; and this custom has found 
favour in Brasted. On the death of the profoundly learned 
Dr. Mill, who was for ten years Rector of this parish, " his 
parishioners, who valued his teaching, and held his memory 
in reverence," placed by subscription in the north side of 
the Chancel a well-toned memorial window, by Wailes of 
Newcastle, containing the appropriate design of a canopied 
figure of the Saviour as the Good Shepherd, with the scroU, 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTED. 47 

"I know my sheep, and am known of mine," and at the 
bottom the inscription, " In memory of William Hodge Mill, 
D.D,, who deceased on Christmas-Day, 1853." 

On the rebuilding of the chm'ch in 1866, the relatives of 
the Rev. William Buckton Holland, the next Rector, who had 
died in 1864, filled in a large three-light window in the east 
end of the new chancel aisle, with a handsome design by 
Messrs. Powell, of Whitefriars, the centre light containing in 
a medallion the figure of our Lord blessing little children, 
with the inscription along the bottom, " In memoriam 
Wilhelmi B. Holland, A.M., hujusce ecclesiae Rectoris, posuere 
consanguinei et affines, 1866." 

It only remains now to speak of the old tower. There it 
stands, with its history written in fairly legible 

^ o ^^ Tower. 

characters on its walls. There it has stood for 
good six hundred years. Each of its three stages retains 
enough architectural detail to mark its date. The massive 
well-buttressed basement, evidently designed for a much 
loftier superstructure, the low plainly bevilled plinth, the 
small pointed archway in the western wall, the loftier and 
more strongly moulded one opening eastward into the nave — 
BO symmetrical, though devoid of capital or ornament — carry 
back the mind to the close of the thirteenth century, when the 
vigorous yet stern Edward I. had succeeded his well-meaning 
but feeble father, Henry III., on the throne of England. 
The middle storey, with its narrow single-light yet deeply 
cusped windows,* was probably built up in the next genera- 
tion, about the time when, on the death of Gilbert, the last of 
the old Norman Clares, at Bannockburn (a.d. 1314), the 

* That on the south face is a miserable plaster imitation of recent 
date. 



48 THE HISTORY OF BRAS TED. 

manor of Brasted was passing, through his daughter Margaret, 
to the Audley family, and thence to the Stafford ; * a period 
of transition which may perhaps account for this portiSn being 
so out of proportion with its noble basement. Some fifty or 
sixty years later — about the time when old Chaucer was 
singing of pilgrims wending their way to the Shrine of 
Thomas a Becket — ^will have seen the upper storey (still more 
dwarfed) rising up with its square-headed two-light windows ; 
then probably crowned with a battlemented or panelled 
parapet, which, if so, has been long since replaced by a 
bald, low wall running round, the line only broken by 
slight elevations at the angles to show where pinnacles once 
rose. 

But it is in its lowest stage, or basement, that the old 
tower speaks most plainly of itself and its own fate. There we 
see how, in spite of, or perhaps to some extent in consequence 
of, its unusual massiveness, it began soon to settle down with 
its own weight towards the north-west. In its original design^ 
the two buttresses at the east were placed, and still are, square 
with the walls, while those at the west both ran up at the 
angles : of these, the one at the south-west angle still remains, 
its masonry interlaced into the walls, and its well-defined 
plinth proclaiming it to be part of the original fabric. But 
the settlement towards the north-west had evidently been 
so great, that the buttress at this angle was removed, and 
two were run up at right-angles to each other on either 
face to give additional support. These are clearly of much 
later date, for they are built against the wall, not into it, nor 
have they plinths ; while on the north face a third buttress 
has been subsequently added, on a most rough unhewn 
foundation. 

♦ See p. 6. 



THE HISTORY OF BRASTED, 



49 



But the most peculiar feature of the tower has yet to 
be noticed. It is the broader and much deeper buttress on 
the west face, with its three deep stages — the lowest widened 
outwards, and arched in the middle, to give through a boldly- 
ribbed passage an entrance into the tower by its original 
western door-presenting a very rare feature, and one of 
much architectural interest. 

Such is the venerable old tower, which pleads so earnestly 
for restoration ; let its historical features be reverently pre- 
served ; its masonry, where worn, be carefully replaced ; its 
internal woodwork renewed ; its bells re-swung ; the dlent 
one re-voiced ; a goodly church clock, too, inserted ; and then 
the work left unfinished for lack of funds in 1866, its defects 
condoned, will receive fitting completion ; and the tower will 
stand out the admiratipn of future generations of parishioners, 
the pride of a lovely Kentish village. 



E 



APPENDIX. 



The Cfanrch Begisters are^ on the whole^ in excellent preser- 
Church vation. They commence in the year 1557, and 

'^^^^"^ continue unbroken down to 1642,* when the first 
book ends. There then occurs a gap of nearly eleven years, 
the second book not commencing till January, 1653. From 
this date, with the exception of an interval between 1780 
and 1782, they appear to have been kept without any 
break. 

A great majority of the names that occur most frequently 
in the earlier years have long since disappeared from the 
parish ; such as Scoone, Swan, Jordan, Quidhampton, Lamb, 
Swainsland, Quarry, Cacott or Cackett,t Seyliard,J and 
others. But it is very interesting to trace, over a period of 
between two and three hundred years, the names of several of 
the present residents of the parish : for instance, there is the 
entry of the baptism of an Everest as early as 15G9, of a 

Waters in 1589, of an Akers in 1589, of a Dutnall in 1590, 
the burial of a Richard Dutnall in 1596 ; a Christopher 

Wells was living in the parish in 1611, a William Wells was 
churchwarden in 1704, a Timothy Wells overseer in 1749. 

* The edges of some pages of Burials between 1590 and 1642 have 
been partially eaten by mice ; but very few of the entries have been 
thereby rendered illegible. 

t This name still attaches to the cottage occupied by Mr. King, of 
the "Model Farm." 

X Seyliards also remains as the name of an estate below Four Elms. 



APPENDIX. 

The Eegisters contain also numerous qi 
entries : for instance, in the year 1703, we h 
ing, which is certainly vefry vague : " A youn 
Thomas King, sawyer (as I am informed), 
Q[ueen]'s Dock at Chatham, died in this p 
buryed at Sundridge (as I heard)." In the 
death is recorded of a boy who " died in this 
buryed at Sundridge ; " and then follows the (] 
to certify the Collector of the Q[ueen]'s Ta^ 
the following occurs: "Brown Thomas, bur 
Street, in the Anibabtis Burying Ground, 
1781, aged 96 years." 

In the covers of the Eegisters are also se^ 
local interest. " March 1735-36, twenty-six ( 
lower part of Bentfield, next to Court Lodge 
B." (Dr. Michael Bull, then Eector.) 

" Mr. William Dudley gave a sconce to Bi 
and it was put up, Dec. 18th, 1790." 

" Some yew trees planted in Church-yard i 
and 1787," " all died." 

" One yew tree planted by Mr. John Nev 
warden, and a Live, 1788." 

The Baptismal Begisters also contain a deta 
all the Briefs received between the years 17 
and 1755, with the amounts collected on each, 
certainly appears to advantage, for though occ 
collections were made on several successive 
varying results, in only one case (that of St. G 
Shrewsbury) was no response given to the ap 
the reason was assigned : " 1704, July 23rd. 
ioners gave nothing ; they having been at gre 
their own church." Possibly in adding the si 



5i APPENDIX, 

or the western gallery, which was removed in the re- 
building. 

Nor is Brasted without its evidences of the pious benevolence 
Parish ^^ former parishioners. The earliest is the legacy 

charitieB. ^f William Crow, Esq., of Brasted Park, in 
1618, who gave an almshouse to the parish. This was 
purchased a few yeaxs ago by W. Tipping, Esq., and the 
proceeds are fanded in the names of the Sector and Church- 
wardens, for the benefit of the poor of the parish. 

In 1638, Elizabeth Smith, alias Crane, left by will a house 
in St. Ann's Lane, Aldersgate, London, in the joint parish 
of St. John's, Zachary, and St. Leonard's, Foster Lane, the 
yearly rent of which was to be thus divided : one-half going 
to those parishes, two-thirds of the remaining half to Brasted, 
and one-third to Sundridge. It appears that in 1751, this 
house was let at a yearly rental of £4 4s. ; in 1777, the 
value of the property had so much increased that the Brasted 
portion amounted to £5 13s. 4d ; and now it reaches £8 10s. 
a year, which is distributed in olothing to the poor. 

. In 1705, William Cackett, of Brasted, yeoman, left forty 
shillings a year (for fifty years after his death) to be given to 
the poor : the last payment appears to have been made in 1768. 

In 1736, Mr. William Newman, a very influential 
parishioner, and for many years Churchwarden, gave by will 
a piece of land called " Ruskett's Farm," in the parishes of 
Westerham and Edenbridge, for the benefit of the poor of 
Brasted — ^the rent to be distributed by the minister and 
churchwardens in the following manner : " ten shillings 
annually to the minister of Brasted, for a sermon to be 
preached in the church on Queen Elizabeth's birthday,* every 
year for ever ; and the residue of the rents to be laid out for 

♦ September 7th. 




APPENDIX, 

clothing of cinnamon-coloured cloih not < 
shillings a yard, the men to have coats and 
women gowns and petticoats." A slight d 
these terms has been gradually introduced ; 
have been given up as being of an obsolete fi 
gowns have been toned down to a darker and 
colour ; a similar change might be very advai 
plied to the coats also ; and a revival of the j 
minister, which has been discontinued for som 
rent now realised on the land is about £28. 

Dr. John Turton gave by deed to this parish, 
the poor, all that row of houses at the west en 
lately purchased of Mr. Bufus Mills, in excl 
ground on which the almshouses lately stood, 
parish by W. Crow, Esq. 

The latest bequest was that of Mr. Minet 
Wood, who in the year 1830 left £200, the int 
smn was " to be applied by the Rector and Chu 
the purchase of articles of warm clothing for tl 
parish in each succeeding winter for ever." 

It is generally known that during the reign of 
bethj and down to that of Charles II., there wa 
so great a scarcity of small copper coinage, ths 
tradesmen and victuallers were allowed to issue j 
of halfpenny and farthing value. It may not be 
known that the trade of Brasted had, more th 
ago, developed suflSciently to demand such a loc 
the circulating medium. Boyne, in his catalog 
men's tokens, mentions one of the value of a fart 
the inscription, " 0. William Lines,* 1666," 
reverse " E. Brested in Kent, W. M. L." 

* In the Register the name is spelt Lynes. 



54 APPENDIX. 

Entries in the Brasted Parish Registers regarding the 
family of Cbow. 

1564. Ann, daughter of Henry Crow, gent., baptized, Jan. 1st. 

1568. William Crow, sonne of Henry Crow, gent, baptized Dec. 12th. 

1576. Jane, daughter of Mr. Henry Crow, baptized Nov. 4th. 

1585. Ann Crow, married to Stephen Meed, Oct. 30. 

1587. Tomaain, wyfe of Mr. Henry Crow, buried June 26th. 

1595. Sackveyle, sonne of William Crow, gent., baptized Dec. 7th. 

1595. Mrs. An Crow, wyfe of Mr. William Crow, buried Jan. 7th. 

1606. Gylles Crow, gent., buried Dec. 12. 



Regarding the family of Heath. 

1570. Feb. 6th. Thomas Heath married to Rachell Olyver. 
1594. April 13th. Martha Heath, daughter of Richard Heath, bap- 
tized. 

1596. Sept. 12th. Richard, sonne of Richard Heath, baptized. 

1597. Sept. 18th. Thomas, sonne of Richard Heath, baptized. 

1598. Nov. 26th. John, sonne of Richard Heath, baptized. 
1601. March 29th. Joane, daughter of Richard Heath, baptized. 

1633. July 17th. son of Edward Heath, (still bom,) buried. 

1667. Oct. 3rd. John, son of Sir John Heath, Kt., baptized. 
1667. Oct. 6th. John „ „ „ buried. 

1671 March 8th. Mr. George Heath, Rector of West Grinstead, in 

Sussex, buried. * 

1676, June 21st. Dame Margarite Heath, wife of Sir John Heath, 

Kt., Attorney-General to His Majesty, of his 

Duchy of Lancaster. 
1683. Dec. 20. Francis Heath, L.D. buried. 
1688. Dec. 2nd. Mr. George Vemey, Fellow of New College in 

Oxon, and Mrs. Margaret Heath, daughter of 

Sir John Heath, Kt., married. 
1691. Nov. 3rd. Sir John Heath buried. 



Regarding the family of Seyliards. 

1557. Nov. 12th. Annis Seyliard, married to John Lamparde. 

1563. Dec. 25th. Thomas Seyliard, gent., married to Alis Bowie. 

1666. Nov. 4th. Margaret Seiliard, married to Robert Olyver. 

1568. Aug. 15th. Margaret, wyfe of Nycholas Seyliard, buried. 



APPENDIX, 



55 



1576. 
1577. 
1584. 
1586, 

1616. 
1628. 
1663. 



Jan. 17th. 
Sept. 13th. 
Jan. 3rd. 
Jan. 11th. 

April 17th. 
S^t. 22nd. 
Jan. 12th. 



Tomasin Seiliard, married to William Swone. 
Margaret, daughter of Thomas Seiliard, baptised. 
Nicolas Seylyard, buried. 
Nicholas Seiliard, sonne of Thomas Seiliard, gent., 

buried. 
Thomas Seilyard, of Sundridge, gent., buried. 
William SeyUiard, gent., buried. 
John Dunklyn, Bury St. Edmunds, and Barbara 

Seyliard, married. 




<r,